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by julioneander 2993 days ago
As absurd as it looks, Microsoft in some part seems to be helping make Linux more attractive. I can tell because of my younger brother, he is constantly complaining of Windows shenanigans (forced upgrades, inconsistent performance, disk space usage, some kind of 30fps cap that he needs to fix on regedit sometimes).

He tried CS:GO in my Linux box and liked that it just worked, apparently ran smoother, and according to him the OS itself seemed simpler. He wants to try Linux on his computer now with my help. Let's see how that will work out, but still, it's a start.
1 comments
AnIdiotOnTheNet 2993 days ago
I feel like this is true and frankly it bothers the living hell out of me.

I'd like to eventually be using an open source operating system on my desktop, I really would, but Linux Desktop is crap and from what I can tell will remain crap because their community has crap ideas.

But now Windows is getting more crap too, by trying to copy the crap parts of the mobile ecosystem and the crap parts of Linux at the same time.

I'm facing a future where I end up with a Linux Desktop not because the Linux Desktop has finally become worth using, but because Windows has become so shit it is better by comparison.

It's enough to make me want to give up computing altogether.

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pbhjpbhj 2993 days ago
There is no "Linux desktop", there are distros, they have various desktop environments KDE, Gnome, Unity, MATE, Blackbox, and lots more.

I'm curious what MS Windows has copied from a common Linux DE or distro that you believe is "crap"?

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AnIdiotOnTheNet 2993 days ago
> There is no "Linux desktop", there are distros, they have various desktop environments KDE, Gnome, Unity, MATE, Blackbox, and lots more.

Yeah, that's a big part of the problem right there.

> I'm curious what MS Windows has copied from a common Linux DE or distro that you believe is "crap"?

Rolling releases, i.e: break everything every 3 months, an over-reliance on the the command line for configuration tasks (and I say this as someone who loves powershell), package managers, and hardcoded paths (mostly for their dev tools), to name a few.

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pbhjpbhj 2993 days ago
Ubuntu, one of the largest Linux distros, does Long-Term Support (LTS) releases with a 5 year release cycle [1].

Things break on Ubuntu for those addicted to upgrades (me!).

In my preferred DE, KDE/Plasma, I can't recall ever needing to use command line for normal user level configurations.

[1] https://www.ubuntu.com/info/release-end-of-life

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AnIdiotOnTheNet 2993 days ago
> In my preferred DE, KDE/Plasma, I can't recall ever needing to use command line for normal user level configurations.

Which in typical Linux evangelist fahion means it never happens to anybody else.

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bwat49 2993 days ago
He's right though, on a modern linux desktop you can typically make through a GUI.

But sure, there are edge cases where you might need to use the terminal or edit a configuration file.

As an analogy, in Windows I've occasionally had to make configuration changes through regedit.

That doesn't mean it's normal to have to make changes in the registry on Windows, it can usually be done through the gui

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pbhjpbhj 2993 days ago
Not at all. If I meant that I'd have said "is never required" or similar; I clearly stated it was my personal experience.

It depends on your hardware as much as anything IME - sadly most PC hardware sellers make stuff to work under MS Windows, so if you're not careful with your purchases you can have problems.

I used to use Slackware, and that was a lot of command line - or at least text based - configuration; but I chose it to learn about administration. Like buying an old car so you can practice fixing it.

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Steltek 2993 days ago
A good push on Wayland will cull the herd of WM/DE's quite a bit. At least, it will funnel them into a small set of common toolkits for building DE's.
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julioneander 2993 days ago
Things are improving over time, even if slowly. With more people using Linux distros, the incentive to improve the desktop parts is greater.

Kernel support is improving too. AMD is contributing to the open source amdgpu driver now, Intel's open source driver is one the most supported among distros.

And what if a Linux Desktop ends up being better than Windows at some point in the future, well, why won't you use the best tool you have available?

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